as he moved closer, rubbing his thumb against her face. “I’ve missed you so much.” Gia thought he’d kiss her, but he shook his head and a small line formed between his eyebrows as he watched her. “There are a hundred reasons you’ve given me. There are a hundred I’ve told myself, but this thing, Gia, this you and me thing…it feels damn good.” He stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding her face between his hands. “How can something that feels this…right be a bad idea?”
Gia wanted to explain all the reasons why they shouldn’t be together. Logic was on her side. So was common sense. But for once, the words supporting her argument wouldn’t come. When she didn’t answer him, when Gia, in fact ran her fingertips over his bottom lip, Kai reacted, holding her close, pausing only when the low, accidental mutter of, “Oh, Feeny” slipped from her mouth. He grinned, not commenting before he had his mouth on hers, a slip of his tongue against hers as he kissed her.
She didn’t stop him. Gia didn’t push him away. She leaned into those big arms and that solid weight, she took the heat of his mouth and gave him back her own, hoping he knew that tonight she wouldn’t fight him. Tonight, she would let Kai Pukui take her kiss and hold her because that’s what you do on Christmas—you give away the gifts of your heart.
14.
GIA
WILDCARD GAME, New Orleans
The stadium was empty. The only noises Gia heard was the straggler crew of custodians quietly vacuuming in the hallway and the vendor’s trucks leaving from the loading dock as she walked from the field, toward the locker rooms. Everyone else had gone off to celebrate. They had good reason.
Reese had done it. Made the big score. Managed to fake a kick and landed a touchdown. The first ever by a woman in the NFL. She’d go down in history. She’d become a legend and Gia felt something old and familiar stirring from the deepest well inside her: pride. It had been a long time since she’d allowed the sensation to breach the surface.
It was Reese she thought of as she moved through the corridors, coming to the front lobby that separated the locker rooms and the business offices. In her mind, Gia saw her kicker’s face all lit up and open, bright and beautiful as she ran that ball across the line. The smile Reese wore got bigger, stretched wider when her teammates hoisted her on their shoulders and ran with her around the field, when the crowd joined in among the chaos. Ricks and even Mills had joined them. Their excitement taking over them as they jumped and danced and cheered their new placekicker on for sneaking in that faked kick. Gia had stood from the sidelines watching; proud, overwhelmed, shaken with the same joy everyone else felt. She was in awe of Reese Noble and the change that was coming to the sport Gia loved.
Those were the thoughts that held her focus as she walked toward the elevators, eager to get into her office and field a few emails that had popped up since the game ended. She didn’t think anything would take the happiness that bubbled in her chest from her. How could anything shake this sensation? But then, Gia was a realist. She’d felt the sting life often delivered even at her happiest moments. There always seemed to be a downside to joy; a sort of toll you paid to experience. Maybe that’s what kept her at the stadium and away from the celebrations. Maybe, somewhere deep down, there was an old instinct inside her that warned of pending sorrow.
Stop it, she told herself, coming to the lobby doors, ready to forget those dark thoughts and just enjoy the victory her team had secured and then…she heard the scream. It was guttural and deep; something that shook loose any wells of courage that kept her in control. She knew an anguished cry when she heard one. She’d made the same cry the morning her uncle told her about Luka.
And now, that same harrowing cry came from the other side of the corridor.
Gia ran through the hallways, circling back until she came to the locker room doors, the scream now an aching cry, the terror she felt threatening to choke her as she went inside.
Her stomach dropped when she spotted Kai on his knees, his cell gripped loosely in one hand